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OSC Moves Supercomputers to New Home

Columbus, Ohio -- March 21, 2002 -- OSC supercomputing and memory systems are moving to a new home.

Columbus, Ohio -- March 21, 2002 -- OSC supercomputing and memory systems are moving to a new home. The new systems will be consolidated in a secure environment at the State of Ohio Computing Center (SOCC) in Columbus, Ohio, providing OSC with a secure and reliable facility with custom-based infrastructure.

All OSC public access systems will be moved to the SOCC. This includes the Sun Center of Excellence in High Performance Computing Environments (COE-HPCE) systems, all cluster systems, mass storage systems, the SGI Origin 2000, Cray SV1, and all support systems. Also included are the stateside software license servers, WEBCT servers, and the OSC web server.

To give readers a birds-eye view of the move, systems will be moved in two phases: In phase one during the first week of April, existing clusters at the SOCC will be moved two floors to OSC's new space. The second phase, scheduled for the second week of May, will transfer existing systems from Kinnear Road Center, the space leased from The Ohio State University for over a decade, to SOCC. Actual schedule dates and times will be announced on oscinfo.osc.edu.

"While there will be some inconvenience to researchers during the move, the quality of SOCC facilities will reduce further outages and ultimately make the system more available to the community," said Al Stutz, OSC associate director.

Teams from Compaq, Cray, Sun, and IBM are working closely with OSC staff to assemble and test the systems. Cray will assist in moving the SV1 system; SGI will move the Origin 2000 and MSS system; IBM, the tape robot; and Sun, the COE systems. OSC has contracted with Commercial Movers, a local firm, to move the equipment.

"Moving and consolidating two data centers into one is not trivial," notes OSC Kevin Wohlever, Senior High Performance Computing Systems Specialist and Moving Coordinator. "Given the planning and experience of the staff and vendors involved, we will be able to not only meet but beat our schedule for returning the systems to production."

SOCC was designed to solve the major electrical, mechanical, and security problems common to the operation of all large data centers. Built to centralize state agency data centers in one location and to share technologies and operating costs, the existing $63 million SOCC is the largest state-owned facility of its kind in the Midwest. This state-of-the-art facility provides maximum security, climate control and fully redundant electrical and mechanical support systems. The facility contains 360,000 square feet of space, including a 225,000 square foot computer room.

OSC will benefit by the reliability built into the SOCC facility. Reliable utility backup systems were designed to keep all computers online at all times. In the event of a service power failure, the systems include Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) capabilities to supply power to the computers for a maximum of 30 minutes as standby generators come on line. The backup generators have a total capacity of 11,750 kilowatts. The generators have enough fuel to run the facility on its own power for days.

To ensure continuous power to the facility, the SOCC is fed electricity from two sources of electrical power, with automatic transfer from one to the other as needed. The services feed the facility's critical power systems: UPS power to the computer equipment, mechanical equipment and office/support operations. The UPS power is distributed through two vertical bus risers to a series of power distribution units that provide power to the computer systems. The SOCC also provides UPS backup for all workstations.

Just as the electrical power must not be interrupted, the computers must also be cooled continuously. The facility would be rendered inoperable in less than 15 minutes without backup cooling in the event of a utility outage. This facility requires 5,000 tons of cooling.

The facility's raised floor areas are cooled by self-contained computer room heating and air conditioning (A/C) units. One of every five A/C units on each computer floor is a standby unit to pick up the load if one unit fails. Heat from the A/C unit compressors is ejected outdoors through cooling towers which are staged into service as needed by the Building Management Computer System.

More information on the OSC systems and applications are available on the technical information server at http://oscinfo.osc.edu/.